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<h1>Articles de La Guinguette - 2002 - novembre - actualit&eacute;</h1>

<table border="1">
<tr><td>Titre</td>                             <td>Penser en euros? C'est pas facile - mais on y vient!          </td></tr>
<tr><td>Ann&eacute;e</td>                      <td>2002          </td></tr>
<tr><td>Mois</td>                              <td>novembre         </td></tr>
<tr><td>Cat&eacute;gorie</td>                  <td>actualit&eacute;      </td></tr>
<tr><td>Traducteur</td>                        <td>Catherine Mills</td></tr>
<tr><td>Derni&egrave;re mise &agrave; jour</td><td>03 April 2010</td></tr>
</table>
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<p>Thinking in Euros.  It's not easy, but we'll get there!</p>
<p>I look at something in euros and I multiply by 6, there you are!</p>
<p>For small amounts I think in euros and for larger amounts in French francs.  In fact all that passes 10,000 francs is the margin.</p>
<p>I must admit that I think first of all in French francs.  I make the translation.</p>
<p>We work together on transport then it is true we use the euro with the tariffs, but finally we do as everyone does.  We look at the price in euros and then we realise what it makes in French Francs so with effort we manage to put ourselves against that, but it's not obvious.</p>
<p>How hard it is to think in euros.  It is almost a year that we passed from the French franc to the euro, but according to recent studies, for the transition in our heads there remains much work to do.</p>
<p>Eighty per cent of French people admit that they find the value of a purchase by mentally returning to francs, according to a poll IPSOS for the Journal du Dimanche.</p>
<p>In the forecasts of the European Union, the double display of prices (in euros and in francs) would finish at the end of June.  The reality is the shop window is very different:  the marking of the price in francs next to the price in euros is observed practically everywhere.  The wine merchant Nicolas, for example:</p>
<p>So in the shop window, you have the price in euros and much smaller you have the price in francs because people often have difficulty making the comparison, even at the sales level we always ask what is the value in francs.</p>
<p>Me, I think we need this transition so that people can put the values in their spirit, equally for us it allows us to run our boutique better and it permits us as well to be much more effective.  An enormous number of our clients still ask us for the ratio with the franc.</p>
<p>Us in our spirit we have completely cut off.  Otherwise we couldn't work any more.  To know how much is 15 euros, 20, you see...  We remember exactly the initial price, before, so, 15 euros, 20 that must be 84 francs, 88 francs, finally I think, so.  But right, we have more than enough, cut the comparison of the franc to the euro.  But, right, there is always a client who always demands us the same thing, they are the old ones, the younger ones, or the very young, that is, they need to check it out a bit more.</p>
<p>I think that the group will stop putting on the prices in francs on the small tickets when perhaps from next year, but I think there should be a period of transition before the euro and a period of transition after the euro, but right, that would make it more quickly absorbed.</p>
<p>Many consumers live today with a hazy idea of the value of their goods.  And at the betting shop there are not the same impressions which are implicated.</p>
<p>Because it is always rounded up to the franc.  And then one doesn't perceive it.  Then it goes away more.  Then we spend more and gain less.  You see.</p>
<p>Yet, is spite of the loss of the markers in the shops of the people we have interrogated, we notice very little regret at the disappearance of the franc.</p>
<p>Ah, not at all.  No, it's practical, right, to go away, to travel, to pay in Europe, in other works, to go throughout Europe it's practical.</p>
<p>No, all, because eventually it's much easier.</p>
<p>...When you go into a European country, you don't have to make transactions, no changing to do, no money to be given back afterwards, so there is nothing to lose.  It's better like that.</p>
<p>I am obliged to convert in order to understand that I have enough money to buy a loaf, or I never know if I have enough, if with 2 euros I can still buy myself a loaf.</p>
<p>So that's a nuisance then?</p>
<p>No, I think it is good, but it's going to need time.</p>
<p>No, no it's not so difficult.  It's a question of habit, right.  So obviously me, I don't have lots of goods to buy so it takes longer, but if I was younger and I bought lots of things, it would be quicker.  Little by little, we are going to get there.  We must forge ahead.</p>
<p>In principal I think in euros.  I haven't been specially trained because I am in accounts and I am at easy with it.</p>
<p>The shop keepers also, we notice that a conversion to francs is asked for less and less today, but it still remains occasionally.</p>
<p>I would say one in three does not ask for it.  The assimilation is easier now.</p>
<p>So, the European powers can be satisfied; we are going the right way and everyone gives of themselves.</p>
<p>It's taking us a bit more time than foreseen, that's all.  Happy except for one aspect.  In order to replace the work 'balles' that we use in a familiar way to speak of the franc (for 100 francs we say 100 balles), the young people have found a nice slang word for the euro that did not strongly please Romano Prodi and his friends in Brussels... for 100 euros for example now we say simply 100 dollars.</p>
<p>People speak of the dollar because it makes them laugh.  They equate the dollar to the euro in fact.  The young people.</p>
<p>$Id: 2002_11_act.htm 4 2010-02-03 20:03:32Z alistair $</p>

<hr>
<h1>Notes</h1>
<p>With questions or for more information, please contact Alistair Mills (<a href="mailto:alistair.mills@btinternet.com">alistair.mills@btinternet.com</a>)<br>
Updated 03 April 2010</p>


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